Kevin Smith wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2017 2:58 pm
Thanks, The lack of stars is intentional though. Given the exposure necessary to see any detail in the ship in direct sunlight the stars would be way too dim to see. If you look at real images in space of objects in direct sunlight, you won't see stars in the background.
A good looking planet at this distance is fairly tricky as the atmosphere starts to get fairly complicated. I have played with it but it drastically increases render time and memory usage (so no GPU render), hence the simple blue for now.
Regarding your first point - If you look at 'real images', sometimes this is true. However, there is where the similarity between imaging equipment and the Human eye ends. While any form of imager has to be stopped down to capture the image in order to avoid having the intense reflected light wash out the recorded image, the Human eye is much more discerning. True, the pupil does close like the multi-leaved diaphragm of the imaging device. However, the response of the optical sensors in the Human retina also can be (and are) made more or less sensitive and responsive. Even though the pupil is nearly closed, those portions of the rods and cones not concentrated on the bright object still will respond to faint light. An eye thus
will have at least a faint response to the brightest stars. As a reference, consider the fact that the Moon can be seen, albeit faintly, even when the Sun is above the horizon.
Finally, as shown in the following photo from NASA, stars
do appear in photos of ships taken in space.
That said, it depends on whether you want the image to look like what an image recorder sees, or what the eye sees. Since the perspective of the observer is tacitly presumed to be a view-port on an adjacent ship, IMHO I would think the latter would be more appropriate.
Regarding the second point, unless a person in space concentrates on a planet for a significant period of time, one that has a reasonably Earth-like atmosphere does not significantly bend or ripple the light passing through it. See the above image. It takes really careful concentration to see the underlying land/water ripple due to atmospheric conditions, and of course a person would not see that at all when viewing a still image - unless seeing side by side two such images that were taken some appreciable time (at least several seconds) apart. That includes wave movement for the water part.
So to me, that means that what I am looking at and clearly seeing is a 100% water world that has no appreciable weather, in an area of space that is a void except for the system primary and its (solitary?) planet. Both issues seem rather unlikely.
However, as the artist it certainly is your choice. I do really appreciate the work you have put into the ship render.
Regards -